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Mirror Neurons
In a fascinating article in this month’s Scientific American Mind, writer David Dobbs describes “one of the prime discoveries in recent neuroscience: mirror neurons.�
These neurons are scattered throughout key parts of our brain—the premotor cortex and centers for language, empathy and pain—and fire not only as we perform a certain action but also when we watch someone else perform that action.
This article helped me understand a recent discussion between women in dance audiences who described the feeling that they were dancing with the dancers on-stage, as they watched. I confess, at the time, that I was mystified. Evidently, according to neuroscientists, this phenomenon is core to how we learn.
We mentally imitate every action we witness, prompting us to dance, grieve and yawn with others.
This article underscored, for me, why both social and socializing aspects of participation in the performing arts are so critical to audience development. When we take a child to a performance, these mirror neurons go beyond prompting the impulse to learn behavior, but according to scientists, “We also use them to appreciate these things, to feel the meaning…�
Using mirror neurons, we develop elaborate forms of social interaction that constitute human culture.
Theatregoers feel the pain of an actress spurned because their mirror neurons fire as if they were experiencing their own rejection, firsthand.
I’ve loved Scientific American for decades and just recently discovered this new magazine. I urge you to go to your newsstand and purchase this issue. It has profound implications for developing audiences, both in experiential and in learning-design terms.
Posted on May 12, 2006 07:29 AM | Permalink
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